


These Little Tragedies

by theskywasblue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Future, Angst, Assisted Suicide, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-07
Updated: 2010-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:28:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, Jien believes it's still going to be okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Little Tragedies

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "Road not taken". Time to write: 24 minutes.

He drops the sword, steps over his mother’s body – heel of his boot, slipping a little in the spreading pool of blood, and lifts Gojyo into his arms.

“Jien you’re crying – Jien?”

“Shh...” he manages, a gurgling noise like a drowning man, pressing his face against Gojyo’s shoulder, pressing them both against the wall, inhaling the little-boy scent of him – dirt and sunshine and something sweet, sobbing. Gojyo clings to him, nuzzles his cheek, smearing blood along both their faces. “It’s okay Gojyo – it’s okay.”

“What about mom, Jien? She’s not okay.”

She isn’t. He aimed to kill, pushing the blade through her chest, almost surprised he hit anything at all. He steps over the body again, unsteady, half blind, into his own bedroom, the only place he feels safe enough to set Gojyo down.

“Jien what...”

“It’s going to be okay,” he’s lying, knows that as he digs into the drawer of his nightstand he can feel the panic rising, and the certainty of what has to happen. The pills are at the very back of the drawer, the bottle wrapped inside a handkerchief. Enough for Gojyo, he thinks with a sinking sensation in his gut and a dizzy one in his brain, but certainly not for him.

That’s okay though, he thinks as he empties the pills into Gojyo’s small hand, still crying as he murmurs the words _‘they’ll make you feel better’_ and Gojyo swallows them dry without question because Jien has never done anything to hurt him before. It’s the way Gojyo deserves, the same way his parents left. For Jien there are other ways, and infinity of them, and he won’t leave his little brother behind.

* * *

Awareness is a shock, like a slap to the face, like a knife to the heart.

Dokugakuji sits bolt upright, throwing his body without conscious thought from the bed into the bathroom to empty his stomach into the sink again and again until his throat is raw and his ribs ache. His fingers seem to tear into the basin, knuckles bone white, and he uses the solid reality of it to hold himself upright while the nightmare bleeds out over the edges of reality, overwriting the truth, until the dizziness and nausea passes and the acrid smell of vomit reminds him that he is awake now; that death is the choice he did _not_ make – however imperfect the other choice was.

He rinses the sink, his mouth, and splashes water on his face with hands that won’t stop shaking unless he fists them up so tight that his blunted nails dig into his palms. Finally he stumbles back into the bedroom, sprawls face down with his face pressed hard into the pillow, sucking air sour from tears and the oil from his hair as he chokes on words that would have been a lie then, but he somehow hopes might be the truth yet.

“It’s going to be okay...it’s going to be okay...”

-End-


End file.
